


Isolationism

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Series: Calling Through Time [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: Altered Mental States, Angst and Feels, Canon Divergence - Post Battle of Hogwarts, Chronic Pain, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Politics, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Severus Snape Lives, Touch-Starved, Wizarding Politics (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 20:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18534853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Sam and Severus talk about their childhoods, their worlds, and the lives they've led as adults.





	Isolationism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [masaothedog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/masaothedog/gifts), [halfbakedsnape](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfbakedsnape/gifts).



> With beta by halfbakedsnape <3

Severus feels strung out. He feels like he’s being dramatic about the whole thing, but he can’t help the feeling that something is wrong.

He pads into the kitchen and finds Sam there, closing the fridge door with a coffee mug in the other hand. Sam passes the coffee mug wordlessly to him. “And you say you’re not psychic,” he says, but it sounds hollow to his ears. “Sam?”

“Mm? You okay, love?”

Severus shrugs. “Caffeine’s a natural painkiller. I’m alright. It isn’t that.”

“Okay. Good.”

Severus nods. He takes a sip of the coffee and gratitude washes through him. It’s the millionth time that he’s been grateful for Sam Winchester and he wants to tell him--

Instead he takes a step back. 

Sam raises an eyebrow and takes a tentative step forward. “Hey. Do you want to sit down?”

Severus chuckles. “I bet you want to ask Dean that all the time.”

“I do but-- This isn’t about Dean.”

Severus blinks and doesn’t say anything. At least not right away. Then he says, “Well, if it was, I’d--” Gratitude is replaced by solid fear that he won’t show Sam. He doesn’t move backwards again even though there’s room.

“Severus, what’s bothering you?”

He sighs, and then crosses the room to the table and finally sits down heavily. “Sam, will you come here?”

“Of course.” Sam joins him and almost immediately he thinks the fear might wash away. But not quite.

Severus lowers his eyes a little and offers Sam his hand. Sam lets him gently place his smaller hand in Sam’s and Sam blows out a breath.

“You’re upset,” Sam says. “Come on, Severus. Tell me.”

“You’re not scared? Of this?” Severus turns his hand in Sam’s grip and twines their fingers together, “Even if my magic is in my bloody arm?”

“No. Of course not. Whatever form it takes, remember? I meant that, Severus.”

Severus closes his eyes. “I know,” he whispers, “It’s just.” A beat. “You aren’t ever uncomfortable?”

“Sev. Hey. Let me tell you a story.”

Severus looks up and nods.

“My dad, uh, he never really knew what to do with his kids. He pretended it was like the Marines a lot. You know the Marines?”

“Ah…Heard of them.”

“It’s the worst branch of the US military you can be in. Screws you up in the head. Then my mom died, and it was like layers, you know? There’s really no universe where John Winchester should have been raising kids by himself, even if we were boys.”

Severus raises an eyebrow.

“Anyway, we.were a handful for him, and actually if I think about it there were always weird things happening around me. Migraines meds couldn’t help with. TVs blowing out. Stuff that… We’d have to move on to another town for. I don’t remember it all, but some of it’s in his journal from that time. I read it eventually. Sev, the point is…”

“Yes?”

“He was pretty sure that I might be a monster. Like the kind we hunt. And…”

Severus stiffens.

“And some of that filtered down to Dean. Not all of it, but enough. It was rough growing up like that. But it means… There’s no way I could think that about another person. Sometimes not even the people who are literally proud, card-carrying monsters.” Sam laughs half-heartedly. “I have an unfortunate history with werewolves that we just don’t talk about, me and Dean. You and I can if you want.”

“I knew someone cursed with lycanthropy,” Severus says despite himself. “I brewed potions for him to keep him in check, even when we were both children. There were others to consider…”

“See? Exactly. So Severus, how could I… How could I think of you… as wrong? Except…”

“Sam?”

“Except if it came to, I don’t know, you know, your feelings for _me_.”

“So help me, if you ask me what you did to deserve my feelings for you…”

Another awkward laugh from Sam. “Well, I know on paper, but once you’ve done enough hunts they start losing meaning sometimes.” He sits back. “I mean-- Severus, I’m sorry. I wasn’t on the job at all. It’s just…”

Severus smiles a bit sadly. “A persona.”

“Maybe.”

“Well… I… I had an idea when I woke up this morning. But if you’re against it, don’t let me ask it of you.”

“Well, let’s hear it first.”

“Sam…” Severus blushes. “I, um. My mam, I’ve mentioned her, she always knew I was skilled. She wanted to send me off to Hogwarts as soon as she could because of my father, ah, her husband. I spent a lot of time studying the books before I got there. I was, there’s a word for this, a nerd?”

Sam grins. “Me too.”

Severus smiles back. “Anyway, I also had some talents, and some of them are rare. That was why I was able to develop some of my magic. Some of it just developed because it came to me. I… I didn’t know, I didn’t try to date other wizards much because I wasn’t sure if it would be overwhelming. There are some other reasons too, but, Sam. You’re the first person with any type of magic that I’ve… but some of how this has come together, it hasn’t surprised me.”

“Me either, once I knew I’d fallen for someone from your world,” Sam says. “But there’s more, isn’t there.”

“I...was already able to read minds. And block people from reading mine. But Sam, I don’t want to block you. I could teach you what I know about that. But right now… That’s not what I want.” 

Sam squeezes his hand. “I know. Keep going.”

“Can I just… I don’t know if it works anymore,” Severus says, and pain rises in his throat. “But we have the bond and I…”

“Do it, Severus. I trust you.” Sam catches his gaze. “I trust you. I _want_ you to. If I didn’t…”

Severus nods. Sam is powerful enough that if he doesn’t want it to happen it simply won’t. He reaches for Sam with his mind before he can second guess himself.

What he finds there is so strong and so fierce it almost knocks him back in his seat.

_don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go don’t go_

_Sam_ Severus calls mentally. _Sam, no one is leaving._

_So selfish. You’re in pain because of me._

_I’m alive because of you._ But that’s not anything that sinks in for Sam. Severus feels it skitter across the surface of Sam’s thoughts and float off.

_I just don’t want you to leave. Because of me._

_Because of you why?_

_Because…_ Sam blows out a breath. 

Severus can feel Sam’s thoughts moving _toward_ him as Sam coaxes them forward. And then he sees--

\--a kaleidescope of the beauty inside of Sam. He’s not able to guess the context of everything, but he recognizes Dean, and John Winchester is unmistakable as a whirling dervish of a man, spinning out of control and turning on Sam whenever anything goes wrong.

Severus closes his eyes when John takes such a prominent place in the memories, but doesn’t otherwise move. He can’t be overwhelmed by this. He can’t. There’s nothing more he wants in the world than staying with Sam and--

He wants to take a mental inventory of all of the body language that John Winchester used, just so he doesn’t even come close.

Sam and Dean are standing on grass in front of a ramshackle Santa’s Workshop when Dean asks to celebrate Christmas despite their bumpy childhood.

_Bumpy?_

“Shit, I’m sorry. Severus, I’m sorry. You didn’t ask to see--”

“Sam. Yes I did. I asked the question. And I want to be able to see all of you. All of it. If you’ll let me.”

“He died,” Sam says, and his tone is flat. Severus can’t even tell which Winchester he means, and he’s left with the mental impression that actually-- Sam means both. “Did you see?” Sam asks.

“I can look again, Sam.”

Sam sighs. “No.”

Severus tells himself that if he hears fear in Sam’s voice it isn’t because Severus himself is scaring him.

But he’s not sure.

Until Sam squeezes his hand where they’re both clasped together and sends down the bond, _I can’t believe you can do that. That’s incredible._

“I can teach you to shield from it, like I told you,” Severus says.

Sam looks him directly in the eye and sends his next thought telepathically for emphasis--emotions and all. _I don’t want to be shielded from anything you can do. Severus This makes us stronger. As a couple, as hunters…_

Severus smiles. “Am I a hunter now, love?” Severus’ tone is open with the slightest hint of brogue.

“Well, you’re picking it up by osmosis.” Sam gestures with a little bit of a flourish at the scene before them at the table. “Besides, I know this year you taught--”

Severus can’t help but smile. “Ah, yes, quite true. Me, a hunter. That’s wonderful,” he says. And he feels Sam _finally_ relax.

“I love you,” Sam says, and he sends the same thought through to Severus again through the bond, with the scent of flowers and the sparkle with fireworks.

Sam means it.

Severus moves noisily in his seat and blushes. 

“Thank you, Sam. I love you, too.”

Sam ducks his head and smiles with the slightest of nervous laughter breaking through. “Thank you too, Sev,” he murmurs back.

Both of them are blushing for a moment. But Severus still has more to say and his tone gets serious again. “Sam. About this idea that I would leave. I want to tell you more about my world. A story of my own.”

“Oh?”

“It’s about how I’d never go back.”

*~*~*

He knows this is exactly the story Sam needs to hear. It was about so many things, in the end. Things that rest just below what they talk about every day. He lets out a breath. “Sam. There are just so many things about the wizarding world. Dumbledore was a problem for me, and I know some of this is hindsight, but I also knew he was a symptom of something bigger.”

“So it’s not just quaint pubs? Sorry, Sev, I shouldn’t interrupt.” Sam ran a thumb over the flesh between Severus’ own thumb and first finger. “Tell me.”

“Well, there were things you and I talked about that night--that made me feel safe.”

“Mostly my birthday,” Sam says.

“Yes, but I was able to see from what you were struggling with that we spoke the same language. That we had many parallel experiences. Have you wondered why your world doesn’t scare me, Sam?”

“Mm?”

“Because mine was just as scary as yours is. If not moreso. It’s not very quaint. It’s not as pure as people might think.” He chuckles. “A smattering of English accents don’t make something pure. My Irish mam could tell you that early and often. No, we were in the life because we were wizards. You can’t take the magic out of the wizard.”

“In the life. That’s what Dean and I say, too.”

“So this one, the one I’m coming into? I will find my way through it, Samuel.”

“Mmhm. That’s what I love about you. I just don’t want you to struggle because of me.”

“Sam. I’m here breathing because something decided we’re here to struggle together.”

Sam blows out a breath. “Was it us who decided that or some other force?”

“I don’t know, Sam. I don’t know.” 

Sam smiles. “Yeah. I think I’d rather not know, maybe.”

“I suppose there are many things like that in your life and in this world,” Severus says. “But our relationship belongs to us so I think we get to decide from now on.”

“I think you’re right. We do. Whenever we need to, and however often.”

“I’m glad we can talk freely about that kind of thing.”

“That’s what makes a good relationship work. And I’m proud of us no matter what.”

“No matter what, I’m here now and it’s where I’m supposed to be. There was no place for me there,” Severus says.

“Because you worked with Voldemort?”

“Because I had been a pawn. Not just for Voldemort, but for others. People who worked for him. People who worked against him. It didn’t matter much.”

Sam nods. “I can understand that, too..”

“When you and I were there together I couldn’t talk about this yet. But Sam, have you thought about why our worlds were so separate? Have you thought about wizards sequestering themselves?”

“Well. Obviously not for as long as you have, love.”

“Mm, fair play. Well, yes, I have, quite a bit. My father was...the less said the better, but he was a Muggle.”

“A normie.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Dean and I say civilians, but…” He shrugs. “Dean doesn’t want to admit he has anything special about him. No powers. No supernatural status. So he thinks he’s a normie.”

“Ah. I see. Well, yes. Well, and Sam, that made me a half-blood.”

“Seriously? They called you that?”

“The Half-Blood Prince. I called myself that. I was young.”

Sam laughs and there is a touch of bitterness in it. “I get it.” And Severus knows he does.

“It’s my mam’s last name. But yes.”

“I’m named after a gun. Well, not literally--but--”

“How American.”

“It is. It really is.”

“Well I love you anyway. That gun of yours saved my life. And the lives of countless children.”

“It’s what I’m here for. But I didn’t mean to interrupt. Go on, Severus.”

Severus downs the rest of his coffee and Sam reluctantly releases his hand and gets up for a moment to refill their cups.

Severus studies his cup for a moment and the contents flicker and change: tea.

Sam laughs. “That’s right. All this time and I didn’t get you any tea.”

“I can make my own. In any case, Sam, the problems of the wizarding world, they’re just not fixable by any single man. Not Albus Dumbledore no matter what his power trip might have been, and certainly not Voldemort. Not even Harry Potter. There’s a principle of isolationism and elitism, exclusion built into everything they do. It really isn’t a place for anyone who’d need other things.” Severus shrugs. “Albus was gay too, you know, but that didn’t mean that he was a good person by default.”

“You have to be good in what you do, not just who you are,” Sam says. “He hurt you badly, Severus, and it seems twisted.”

“Indeed. But he was part of a system. A system that ignored Muggles and _tried_ to ignore half-bloods and all the rest. My mam taught me to be a good example, I suppose. She had to. I have talents, and if I had let them they could have gone to my head.”

“The opposite of that is what actually happened, I can tell you that much already,” Sam says.

“Ah, well, Sam. I could say the same about you.”

Sam chuckles. “Mm. There’s more to your story, go on.”

“Well, Sam, the wizarding world, it believes it has many things figured out. As in at the exclusion of others. I didn’t want to be in that environment anymore. It’s just not good--it’s toxic. Sometimes it’s hard to put into words, but when you literally inhabit both worlds you can see the flaws in each.”

“Of course.”

“And I suppose, all things being equal, I’ve made a choice. I don’t want to be in a place that would ignore the wellbeing of Muggles. Or in fact their own citizens who are struggling. My father was no good for my mother whatsoever, but where was she supposed to go with all of that? She didn’t impress upon me that this was my responsibility to fix, and yet…” Severus shrugs. “In any case, I didn’t have the isolated childhood of some of my wizarding peers. Or perhaps I did in a different way.

“There was Muggle news at home; Mam didn’t protect me from that, she saw no reason to imagine well over half the world didn’t exist. The wizarding world comprises such a small population, a pocket. But that only made me angrier, Sam. I was angry and I was hurting. Seeing things unfold, learning to look at things from more than one angle… I didn’t want anything to befall my Muggle peers and in that...I was alone.”

“That sounds horrifying.”

“They weren’t deliberately malicious perhaps--and that is in fact a qualified perhaps. I’m not sure sometimes, Sam, but in the end the result is the same. Muggles who die when wizards could help them. Wizards who pretend that ailments don’t exist. I’m a man who deals in potions and I was treating Remus--the werewolf--when nobody else would. I wouldn’t undo that, even if things had been easier with his friends. Ah, I wish you’d been there, in a way. I wish you had a-- well, you’ve got your own frame of reference, really…”

“Mmhmm.”

Severus looks down. “I’m sorry. It’s still raw.”

“When have you ever been able to talk about any of this, Severus?”

“Never.”

“So I’m here. Keep going for as long as you need, and we’ll stop when _you_ say it’s enough.”

Severus’ grip tightens on Sam’s hand.”You are amazing, Sam. So many years in the making…”

Sam looks a bit bemused, but manages a smile.

“There were so many times the wizarding world looked the other way. So many times, Sam. And I know there are times that I’ve forgotten, for every one that I remember. They don’t deserve suffering any more than anyone else, but there were times I couldn’t take it.”

“I feel like you’re telling me something without--”

Severus’ grip on Sam’s hand got even tighter. “Sam. Can we…”

“Does it hurt?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how to say some of this.”

Sam closes his gentle eyes and soft words find their way directly into Severus’ mind. _Just send it, Severus_.

*~*~*

A dam bursts as silent tears finally begin to fall from Severus’ eyes. He wants so much to be holding Sam, but a fresh wave of doubt and fear hits him. He can’t touch Sam, not now, not the way he wants to. He can’t seek comfort when he is about to show Sam this.

He is Severus Snape, and he can’t just have comfort when he-- 

_Severus. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you._

_Severus sees the image of Sam stepping through_ light _to enter the portrait and finding himself in the pub in Hogsmeade. He sees Sam, so very drunk and oozing loneliness, and the moment they first touch, knees together, and how he knows Sam is not a wizard but there’s something about him that is magic. Something that makes him safe, and someone to bring home to the castle. He feels the moment that he first kisses Sam and all of a sudden Sam is_ entangling himself _with him, all limbs and huge proportions and definitely more than he ever anticipated._

SAM! Severus calls. _How? How do I show you the rest?_

__

Let me have it, Severus. Send it. I can see it.

__

_News articles Severus remembers spin past--not actual text, but the wrenching gut feeling that came with them. Living in two worlds as he sought lovers who were less in the dark, unable to ignore who he was. He sent Sam dates. Of the news. Of Muggle deaths, of protests and struggles for medication while wizards sat by._

And then he can’t be so close to the thoughts anymore. He stops the mental flow. “So many died, Sam,” he says out loud, his voice hoarse with still unshed tears. “So many died. Especially from AIDS. Those were my people, Sam. Our people.”

Tears start to flow down Severus’ cheeks. “I worked on potions for them but I really just saw so many of them die.”

Sam squeezes Severus’ hand. “Love…”

“All this,” Snape says, “You signed up for this. Did you really?”

“Yes, Severus. I really did. Let it out, angel.”

“I...I need to lie down.” Severus downs the rest of his tea and stands, taking a few shuffling steps.

“Can I come with you?”

“Of course, Sam. Of course.”

Sam moves to his side and takes his hand again and they walk together into the bedroom.

Once they’re in the room, Severus breaks down. He lets Sam lead him haltingly to the bed and they both sit on the edge.

“I’ve got you,” Sam whispers.

“So many people, Sam.”

He doesn’t expect a response. There’s nothing that Sam can say. Nothing can undo history.

It seems Sam realizes this. All he does is just hold on.

**Author's Note:**

> 4/25/19: Last chapter going to beta.


End file.
